Six In The Morning Wednesday 1 September 2021

 

The Taliban's return has plunged the Middle East into uncharted waters

Analysis by Tamara Qiblawi

Updated 1217 GMT (2017 HKT) September 1, 2021

Afghanistan may not be part of the Middle East but its geopolitical fate has for decades been inextricably linked to that of the nearby region.

In 2001, the fall of the Taliban was the first major milestone in America's so-called "war on terror" that ultimately transformed both the country and the Middle East. Twenty years later, the group's return to power in Kabul has thrust the region, still limping from the unspeakable damage of that war, into uncharted waters.

If the US invasion of Afghanistan prompted intensified American intervention in the Middle East, then its exit from the country also signals an accelerated drawdown from a region that has long served as a gravitational center of political tension. The dramatic scenes from Afghanistan have sounded alarm bells throughout the Middle East, raising the specter of a hasty undoing of an economic and political order that has hinged on, or sought to counter, a large US presence in the region.

Opec member urges oil producers to focus more on renewable energy

Iraqi minister and International Energy Agency chief urge countries to move away from fossil fuel dependency

Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent

Wed 1 Sep 2021 13.27 BST

The finance minister of Iraq, one of the founding members of the global oil cartel Opec, has made an unprecedented call to fellow oil producers to move away from fossil fuel dependency and into renewable energy, ahead of a key Opec meeting.

Ali Allawi, who is also the deputy prime minister of Iraq, has written in the Guardian to urge oil producers to pursue “an economic renewal focused on environmentally sound policies and technologies” that would include solar power and potentially nuclear reactors, and reduce their dependency on fossil fuel exports.

Along with the executive director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, he wrote: “To stand a chance of limiting the worst effects of climate change, the world needs to fundamentally change the way it produces and consumes energy, burning less coal, oil and natural gas … If oil revenues start to decline before producer countries have successfully diversified their economies, livelihoods will be lost and poverty rates will increase.”

Belarusian prosecutors order harsh 12-year sentence for opposition leader Kolesnikova

Maria Kolesnikova infuriated Alexander Lukashenko in September 2020 by ripping up her passport on the Belarus-Ukrainian border and refusing to be forcibly deported

She was the driving force of a female triumvirate that unnerved Alexander Lukashenko in elections last year – cutting through decades of dictatorship with a trademark heart hand sign that she’d draw to supporters at rallies.

On Tuesday, Mr Lukashenko returned Maria Kolesnikova a sign of his own by ordering harsh 12-year jail terms for her and her colleague Maxim Znak. There seems little prospect of the court doing anything other than obliging the requests.

The trial, which is being held behind closed doors in Minsk, is going ahead with unprecedented haste. A sentence is expected barely four weeks after the process began. No one can say anything about the charges or the evidence; they are both classified.

A university falls, taking down a symbol of US soft power, Afghan cultural dignity

When the Taliban swept into Kabul last month, they immediately took over the abandoned American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), the country’s most prestigious private university. Most of the endangered students are now stuck in Afghanistan as its faculty attempt to get them out while mourning an intellectual and cultural loss.

On a cold Kabul morning three years ago, students at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) gathered around a wall in the sprawling, heavily fortified campus to declare their defiant commitment to education.

“I am back because education prevails,” the students painted, next to a drawing of a young man and woman picking up their books amid an orange swirl of feathers of a rising phoenix.

West Bank anger boils as Jenin becomes hotbed of resistance

Palestinian security forces are afraid to go into Jenin refugee camp and have been unable to control it as disillusionment intensifies.

By Al Jazeera Staff

1 Sep 2021

 Palestinian armed groups are increasingly becoming more visible as frustration with the Israeli military, violent settlers, and the Palestinian leadership – whose authority continues to wane – intensifies.

Israel Defence Minister Benny Gantz met with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Sunday night in the first top-level meeting between the two sides in10 years.

One of the main issues discussed was security coordination in light of the deteriorating safety situation in the occupied West Bank where PA and Israeli security forces are facing an increase in resistance from armed Palestinian groups, with a burgeoning number of firefights taking place as Palestinian disillusionment with the peace process reaches a nadir.

Japan finds black particles in Moderna vaccine

Japan has put a batch of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine on hold after a foreign substance was found in a vial.

A pharmacist saw several black particles in one vial of the vaccine in Kanagawa Prefecture, according to authorities.

Some 3,790 people had already received shots from the batch. The rest of the batch has now been put on hold.

It comes less than a week after Japan suspended the use of about 1.63 million Moderna doses due to contamination.